South Tyneside Health Sexual Awarded You’re Welcome Accreditation
The South Tyneside Sexual Health service have been awarded The Department of Health Quality criteria for young people friendly health services in response to the COVID 19 pandemic.
The dynamic adaptive approach of the South Tyneside Sexual Health service response to meet the needs of the population during COVID, have been recognised and now awarded with the prestigious national accreditation of You’re Welcome Friendly Service certification, restoring the original standards to reflect 2021 service delivery.
Department of Health England set of quality criteria for youth-friendly health services entitled You’re Welcome Standards, provides framework in a set of nine service evaluation criterions for service delivery, design and on how resources are allocated & used to help promote better health outcomes for service users within the local population.
The Sexual Health service vision and values promote to ensure all young people are entitled to receive appropriate health care wherever they access it, in a range of community settings and platforms readily available for service users . The Department of Health Quality criteria for young people friendly health services lay out principles to support health services – both in the community and in hospitals – to ‘get it right’ and become young people friendly.
The outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic impacted sexual health service delivery, introducing rapid changes to operational formats to ensure safe health care was delivered in line with national social distancing guidance.
To ensure the maintenance of Sexual & Reproductive Health provision during the COVID pandemic, South Tyneside Sexual health adopted a flexible, realistic approach, of adapting provision according to population need & capacity was continuously evaluated and adapted to support young people and service users as well as minimizing the risk of COVID-19 transmission.
South Tyneside Sexual Health systematically evaluate service provision and ways to improve: the accessibility of services; the delivery of preventative approaches; and young people’s ability to be actively involved in their own care having input on the design of Sexual Health Services.
The quality criteria cover ten topic areas:
- accessibility
- publicity
- confidentiality and consent
- environment
- staff training, skills, attitudes and values
- joined-up working
- young people’s involvement in monitoring and evaluation of patient experience
- health issues for young people
- sexual and reproductive health services
South Tyneside Sexual Health are driven to promote the concerted application of the Quality criteria for young people friendly health services contributing to improving the quality and coverage of health services provided to adolescents in England, and to the reduction of inequities in access to health services in the North East
Well done South Tyneside Sexual Health
Further information can be found on how to receive You’re Welcome Accreditation by visiting:
Quality criteria for young people friendly health services – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)